


Surprise

by angstbot



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Swen, swan queen - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 05:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstbot/pseuds/angstbot
Summary: Regina finds more than she bargained for when she goes back to her office one night.





	Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "If we get caught I’m blaming you.”

With a sigh that felt like it started at the bottom of her pumps, Regina trudged up the stairs to her office. As she went, she silently cursed the broken elevator, the fact that Emma was working late, Henry’s trip to sixth grade nature camp, and most of all the fact that the notes for the report she wanted to fill her empty evening with tonight had been left behind on her desk.

Just outside her office, she heard a voice coming from behind the closed door. “We would be done already if _someone_ hadn’t forgotten the tools.”

Regina stopped in her tracks. Who was in her office?

“I said I was sorry.”

She was just on the verge of barging in and demanding to know what was going on when the first voice spoke again. "Well if we get caught, I’m blaming you.” That sounded suspicious, and she moved closer to the door to listen and try to figure out what the situation was, careful not to cross in front of the glass and alert the intruders to her presence.

There was a heavy thud, and one of them exclaimed, “Ow! Motherfucker! That fucking safe is a pain in my ass.”

If someone was going to break into her safe for the petty cash, surely robbing a convenience store was easier. Unless- what if they wanted the master emergency plan? Anyone who had that could get around everything they had in place to keep the townspeople safe. But they couldn’t actually break into it. Could they?

“Come help me, I don’t have enough leverage.”

That didn’t sound good.

“We did it. Now we can ratchet it up. Easy.”

“Nice.” After a moment, the voice said again, “Uh oh, I think I’m stuck. Don’t laugh.”

There were scuffling sounds and some more thuds.

“If you say anything, I’ll kill you.”

This sounded very serious now, and Regina stepped forward, one hand outstretched to open the door and the other conjuring a fireball. The click of her heel on the wood floor echoed loudly in the empty hallway.

The people in her office went completely silent for a moment. Then one of them whispered, “Did you hear that? We gotta go.”

“We’re not done!” The other voice hissed. “You said you would help me with this job.”

“Alright, but if Regina murders us, I’m blaming you.”

“Relax, she’ll never even know we were here,” the second voice said.

“Oh she won’t, will she?” she said, flinging the door open.

She was startled to see Emma and Ruby. Standing next to a new- desk?

“Surprise,” Emma said weakly.

“What are you doing?” she blurted, too confused to manage politeness.

Emma looked down and shuffled her feet. “You said you wanted a standing desk, so I got you one for your birthday. It was going to be here tomorrow when you came in.”

“My birthday isn’t until next week,” Regina pointed out.

“Well yeah, but if I tried to do it any closer, you’d get suspicious and ruin the surprise.”

“I would not,” she insisted.

Emma looked up at her and crossed her arms. “You caught me filling your stocking at Christmas.”

“Well, yes, but-”

“And you strong-armed the waiter into telling you about the necklace I was going to have served with dessert at Valentine’s last year.”

“He seemed very shifty.”

“The point is, you’re way too observant for my own good, so I’ve had to get more creative.”

“Fair enough,” Regina conceded. Then she remembered that there was a gift for her in this room. “I do like the desk,” she said, walking over to it and running a hand along the edge. “I assume there’s some kind of mechanism to lift for standing?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, with a sudden soft smile Regina couldn’t read. “C’mere and let me show you.”

“I’ll just show myself out,” Ruby murmured.

“Thanks, Rubes,” Emma said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ruby closed the door behind her for some reason, but Regina didn’t dwell on it, moving forward to stand in front of the desk as she’d been directed. Emma stepped close and wrapped an arm around her, pressing against her back and nuzzling her neck a bit. Regina hummed happily. Then with her other hand Emma guided her to reach under the edge of the desk. “Here’s the handle, see? And it raises. You can look under there and see how it works and everything.”

When Regina did, she saw a diamond ring suspended under the desk from a red satin ribbon and turned in Emma’s arms.

“Surprise,” Emma said again, with a big grin this time.

“Is that-”

“Will you marry me?”

“What- I-” Regina knew she was smiling like an idiot, but was unable to formulate a coherent response.

“I told you I had to get more creative to keep ahead of you.”

“Well-” She still felt at a loss.

“I notice you haven’t given me an answer,” Emma said dryly.

“Yes!” Regina insisted before grabbing her face and kissing her soundly.

When she pulled back it was only enough to rest their foreheads together. “You,” she murmured, feeling full of love for her but also faintly exasperated by the deception of it. 

“Me,” Emma said back in the same tone, then kissed her forehead and eyebrows and eyelids and nose.

“I like you,” Regina sighed.

“I hope you more than like me if you’re going to marry me.”

“I don’t know,” she said, having recovered enough from the surprise to sass her right back now. “You haven’t even put that ring on my finger yet.”

“Well then let me fix that,” Emma murmured, pulling away so that she could bend down and untie the ribbon under the desk. When she stood up, ring in hand, she paused for a moment to do something on her phone, and Regina was just about to be annoyed that she was pausing to text at a time like this when music started playing from its small speaker.

Emma held out her hand, palm up, and Regina put hers into it. “Will you marry me?” Emma asked again.

She felt overwhelmed with emotion all over again, but managed to say a choked “Yes.”

Once Emma had slid the ring onto her finger, she asked, “Dance with me?”

Regina suddenly recognized the sound of Chrissie Hynde singing about how nothing her lover could confess would make her love him less, and it felt achingly like the way Emma had always treated her history of darkness, and she felt her eyes well up, but nodded. Emma pulled her into her arms, and the moment felt absolutely perfect.

After they’d swayed in time to the music for almost the whole song, Regina found herself suddenly curious. “How did you know I’d be coming back to the office?”

“Oh, I didn’t.”

“Then how did you plan all this?”

“I didn’t. I am _so_ not that smooth.”

“But- it’s all so-”

“It’s all so lucky, is what it is,” Emma finished for her. “You really were supposed to find the desk tomorrow and then I was going to show you how to use it and let you find the ring. But then you were here and I was ready enough and I just went with it.”

Regina laid her head against Emma’s shoulder again and chuckled.

“What?”

“That sounds more like the woman who got caught with her hand in my stocking.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“You’re ridiculous.” They swayed a moment longer. “But I could think of places you could put your hands.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. But first, play that song again.”

Once Emma had restarted it and come back to hold her. Regina reached up and cupped her face again, pulling her into a slow, deep kiss that went on and on.

**Author's Note:**

> the song, in case you don't know it: https://youtu.be/bLpmj059JFA


End file.
